To Be A Ninja
by Mirage Shadowfox
Summary: Naruko's a leaf on the breeze trying to find where she is supposed to land. Naruto is a tiny pebble who dreams of becoming a mighty boulder. Sasuke is the bright embers of an eager fire. Hinata is the stream weaving her way through the forest, trying to overflow her banks. These four Ninjas must fight their way into adulthood and survive all of the trials their society dem


All the characters in this are super mature so don't be surprised when they can think clearly and use some awesome remarks. Also this will depend on the reviews and this starts by focusing on the twins before switching you'll see.

So I present To Be A Ninja.

Hiroto let out a low, weary groan as he came into consciousness again. His blond hair glazed over his eyes for the moment. It took several minutes for his slightly unaged, sparkling blue almost green eyes to clear. When they did, he found himself a little too close to his sister ,who he had come to recognize as a good friend instead of a sibling, for comfort. She had snuggled up to him in her sleep, as she often did during the night, while the sun was gone disappearing, for the moon to take the spotlight and the animals began to wake for the night. He drew away very gently, and shifted himself to point his slightly pointed nose edged towards the entrance of their makeshift house. She slept on, unperturbed by his sudden change of movement.

_What I wouldn't give to be able to sleep like that again, _he thought, before sighing softly. _Then again, if I could, she wouldn't let me do that would she, Naruko was sometimes so stingy about certain things. He chuckled softly to himself so as not to bring his sister to consciousness. _

Hiroto's sparkling oceanic eyes flicked up towards what pieces of the sky he could see, all an alluringly beautiful sky blue with a wonderful , and he groaned again to himself. It seemed like the days passed in the blink of an eye now,soon they would be taking their Ninja orientation in a while and Hiroto wasn't sure that he or his sister could do it the clone jutsu anymore. They, the days before the academy test, were definitely shorter; they'd left the summer solstice behind two months ago, and it was all downhill from there. The days would grow short, the nights would stretch out like the abyss, and the chill would pass through his spine making him wish they hadn't moved houses. The Hyuuga and him had been drifters ever since he had saved her from the kidnappers. He sort of wished they had returned to the compound.

At the last thought, he threw his sister a side-glance. She had never experienced being a ninja before, then again neither did he, she did not know the dangers it held. He had no doubt she believed she was prepared, that she believed she was ready to face the bitter life as a ninja, for them to come face to face with an S class ninja, for them to be attacked by kunais and knives. But belief and fact were two very different things.

He yawned, jaws stretching and popping like they were trying to get away from the rest of his head. He was bone-weary, that was the long and the short of it, and if he was being honest with himself, his sister was to blame. Hinata had started another one of her rounds of questioning in the darkening abyss of the welcoming night, just when they were settling down to sleep. That was always how she was, at her most restless when it became time to be still, no wonder she was so loud when they were around each other.

"_What does it mean?" she had asked, looking up at the blue-black sky, searching for the scores of gleaming diamond eyes that had long since disappeared when she had began to sleep a few hours ago, those gleaming stars let her imagine if she and her brother could have a better life than they did._

"_What does what mean?" he had grunted beside her, eyes closed, his slightly curled-up posture causing a slight rattle in his chest with each batting breath, he took as he watched the blond pre teen speak eyes now wide open. At attention._

"_You know. To be like we'll become. To Be A Ninja!"_

That was always the question she asked. It was ridiculous, laughable. There was no key to being a ninja: they simply _were. _But she was not the kind to settle for answers like that.

"_It's got to be more than swords and weapons and cool clothes?" she had gone on. "I mean, Civilians have that at their fingertips."_

"_They can't use them as good as we can," Hiroto had replied, knowing it was not enough of an answer, knowing it would only set her off with more, but having nothing else to give but silence. Quiet was his friend, not hers._

"_Samurai's can, though."_

"_Their extinct."_

"_Medical nin can do that, the real ones like Tsunade Right?" She had turned to look down at him, barely tanned ears pricked quizzically. "You said they can be very skilled sometimes. And you're not all that bad." She had poked his black clothed shoulder, and he had retorted with a soft snort._

He did have answers, of course. One didn't reach his age without them. But they were not the sorts of answers she would want to hear, or he would want to share.

"_Why does it matter? You're gonna be a ninja, I'm gonna be a ninja. That's all there is to it. There's no great meaning behind it. We might have just as easily been medics, civilians or samurai." _"_Do you think it's really that easy? Do you think it's all left up to chance like that? What if I had been a civillian, and you had beena samurai? Would you have killed me, instead of saving me? Or would we still have known each other, somehow?"_

_He had rubbed one hand overhis nose, a weary sigh escaping him,he hated being blunt to her it made him sad to even say it.. "I do not know," Hiroto said again. "No one does, and those thoughts will drive you mad if you pursue them. Sometimes things just are. It does not have to mean anything."_

"_That's like saying nothing means anything." A tiny furrow had marked her brow, and Hinata had squinted back up at the stars with her green-gold eyes,he was sometimes blunt with her when she had asked him this question. "It can't be true. If we don't mean anything, then what's the point? Whyare we ninja, why did you have to be my brother? Why are we even be alive, if in the end nothing matters?"_

_Hiroto had been quiet for a long time, trying to think of the right response to give, trying to find something that would satisfy her enough to stop her from prying even further. _

"_There are plenty of stories that try to address that very question," was all he had been able to come up with. "But none of them do a very good job."_

_Her ears had pricked, and he had sighed to himself, for she always loved his tales. "What sorts of stories?"_

_And Hiroto had told her about the Tempers – something fairly harmless, something that would catch her imagination and make her forget her original question entirely – and that had been enough, at least for one day._

But now the sun sun had begun rising, and the two of them would soon be preparing for another busy day, and she would begin her questions again just when he most wanted to rest in the evening.

As if on cue, his sister stirred next to him, twitching and her little head rising, jaws parted in a long yawn. His little body uncurled himself, and as her honey eyes found him again she gave him a wonderful, sweet smile.

"Morning, Hiroto Nii-kun," she greeted him.

"Morning, Onee-chan," he said, before rising slowly to his feet and stretching, hearing his bones pop and crack. She did the same – minus the crackling – and hurried out of their house, her backpack disappearing before he could even open his mouth. She was already gone, his little leaf on the breeze, his tiny forest urchin. She was already rushing off to poke her nose where it didn't belong, to overturn rocks better left alone, to splash through rivers hiding deep secrets. She would get herself in trouble as she always did, running around from when the sun set to when the moon disappeared, and he would be the one to pull her tail out of the fire, as always.

There were plenty of things he knew about, when it came to being a Ninja. There were hoards of answers he had considered and disregarded, plenty of responses he had been taught, plenty of solutions beaten into his brain. But none of those mattered anymore, not out here. For the moment, as far as he was concerned the only reason he was a Ninja– and not a medic or a samurai or a civilian – was so he could protect her, and he would do so for as long as he was able.

With a resigned sigh, he left the warmth and relative comfort of their house behind, plodding out into their surrounding forest.


End file.
